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Whoops! The octopus grabbed some of the words out of this article. Can you replace them?
n octopus mom is a busy mom. She lays from 50,000 _________
It can take ___________ for the eggs to hatch. The mother octopus stays with her eggs the entire time. She protects the eggs from _______________. She waves her tentacles gently over the eggs. The moving water keeps them clean and _____________ them with plenty of oxygen.
to as many as 200,000 eggs!
She carefully ____________ her eggs and stitches them together in long ____________. She then
attaches them to the roof of a cave. This is her nursery.
But watching the eggs means she can’t go ____________ to feed herself. Sadly, after the eggs hatch and she releases them into the ocean, she dies. Standards Link: Life Science: Animals adapt in different ways in order to survive.
Donkey mothers may be the most devoted of all. They will not let any other animal come between them and their babies. Even if a curious little kitten comes close, a donkey mom will chase it away.
mama alligator covers her eggs with old, rotting plants. As the plants rot, they give o heat, which means mama doesn’t have to sit on her eggs to keep them warm.
Standards Link: Visual Discrimination: Finding similarities and differences in common objects. Find the di erences between the mother donkey, its foal, and their re ection in the pond.
While she may not sit on her eggs to keep them warm, a mama alligator does stay close to the nest to protect the eggs from predators. Once her babies are born, she carries them around in her jaw for protection.
© Vicki Whiting May 2025
www.familyresourcegroupinc.com
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